Warren Ellis will have you beaten up by security....

But read this and you'll see why:

I’m at the London MCM Expo tomorrow, in the Comics Village area from about 1pm. I’m aiming for noon, but, you know, I work late and get up late, so let’s assume I’ll shamble in around one.

I will sign stuff, but two warnings:

1) If you turn up with a cart full of everything I’ve done (and this has happened before) waiting to be signed, I will laugh at you and then have you beaten up by security. Seriously. At one show, a guy conscripted his brother to pull the other cart. Pick five things you like and I’ll be delighted to sign them. Bring a hundred things and I will not be pleased to see you.

2) I’ll sign five items, at a go, but I’ve managed to bugger up my left wrist through (I don’t know how) sleeping on it, so if you’re one of the people who likes to drop a stack of wrapped, bagged, sealed, taped books on my table and then expect me to do all the unwrapping and rewrapping… well, that’s not going to happen, and if you give me shit about it I’m going to tell you to fuck off to Tesco’s if all you really wanted at my table was someone to do your packing for you. And then I’ll have you beaten up by security.

And having been at a fair number of signings in my time, mostly from the side of being staff at them, the presumptions of the folks getting things signed is quite breathtaking at times - coming up to an artist or writer with a stack of 50 comics, planting them down and just standing there; no hello, no polite chat, just the expectation that the creative monkey behind the table should get a move on and sign the comics. Rude, rude, rude. It's not everyone of course, most comic fans are a delight. Just the occasional one or two that always seem to appear at signings.

On a related note I heard back from Rich at N&C last weekend that his mate Shaun had gone down to the recent Alan Moore/Kev O'Neill League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen signing at Gosh. The queues were round the block several times, yet Alan and Kev still managed to spend 10-15 minutes chatting with lots of people, no pressure to move on, no rush at all. Gentlemen both of them was the report I had back.